The Fuse
by Chasing Liquor
Summary: A McKay and Keller courtship, interwoven with and defined by the randomness and cataclysm of a dangerous Pegasus Galaxy. McKeller, McKay/Sheppard friendship, McKay/Teyla friendship, McKay/Beckett friendship.


**Disclaimer**: MGM, I humbly bow to you.

**Spoilers: **Trio, Ghost in the Machine, The Shrine, The Lost Tribe

**Description:** A McKay and Keller courtship, interwoven with and defined by the randomness and cataclysm of a dangerous Pegasus Galaxy. McKeller, McKay/Sheppard friendship, McKay/Teyla friendship, McKay/Beckett friendship.

**Warnings: **Some light violence and language. Nothing offensive.

**A/N**: Well, 95% of this was written before the resplendent "Brain Storm," so I'm afraid this story and that episode stand in contradiction. But I don't suppose that matters.

I put in a lot of work on this one -- a great deal of time in the original writing, and lot of time editing. I hope the effort produced something worthwhile.

As always, I am eternally appreciative of those of you who offer feedback. It's very generous of you. So, let me know how this turned out in the form of a review. Thanks, and I hope enjoy.

(Minor A/N: The Boss is releasing a new album in January. That has "fic explosion" written all over it).

* * *

**The Fuse  
**

* * *

All things are at the mercy of a burning fuse, counting down to the moment when a choice is no longer yours. And in the spaces occupied after expiration, there's just you and your shadows, and the empty repentance of the inconsolable.

-----

McKay looked down shyly, spinning his bottle in front of him, trying to pay attention to the way it smeared the ring of condensation on the table. He was finding it hard not to look at her with lust. Or affection. He couldn't tell them apart sometimes.

"You're quiet all the sudden," she said.

"Hmm?"

"You got quiet. Did I say something, or…"

He looked up, greatly surprised to see her trepidation. She looked worried that she'd offended him. He recognized the expression because he wore it often himself.

"No, no. Not at all. I'm sorry, I'm just… a little tired, I guess. Long day."

She smiled mildly – falsely – his words apparently uncomforting.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," she said.

"You're – what? Why?"

"You wanted to go to bed and I made you – "

"You didn't _make_ me do anything."

"I'm pretty sure I did."

"I'm pretty sure you're wrong."

"You tried to turn me down like four times. I should have just – "

"Where is this guilt trip coming from? I'm glad you asked me, okay?"

This time her smile, though mild still, looked real, hopeful. He wracked his brain, but he couldn't think of why she'd be nervous. She had the comportment of someone trying to impress a person. But he was already impressed, and he couldn't figure why she'd be trying anyway.

"I… yeah, okay. I'm being stupid, I guess. Sorry. Maybe I'm tired too," she offered half-heartedly, glancing down.

He wasn't sure what to say or do, or to what he could attribute her anxiousness. He didn't think things were going poorly. In fact, he thought they were going rather well. They'd talked about their jobs and about their friends and made jokes about their brush with death, as those who dodged the Grim One were prone to do.

She looked kind of sad to his eyes, and she seemed to find the label of her beer of sudden interest. He thought if he said something sincere, she might not look like that anymore, so he uttered the first thing that came to mind.

"Thanks, by the way."

She glanced up again.

"For what you said about Katie. That was nice of you," he told her. "Probably more than I deserved. But I guess that's why it was nice."

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong – that it was _less_ – but instead she only nodded. It was a cowardly thing, to leave his claim unchallenged. But some ears can hear truth, and others can't. And she didn't know which kind he had yet.

-----

Sheppard shook his head, bounding down the stairs as McKay fought to keep up.

"We've got a lot bigger things to worry about than that, Rodney."

"Like what?" the scientist snapped, dodging a passerby.

"Oh, I don't know. Finding Michael, tracking down Todd, fighting the Wraith, bringing aid to refugees – "

" – And we can still do all those things. I'm not asking you to shut down the entire base for this. I'm asking to use the full resources of the science department for _one week_. That's only one hundred sixty-eight hours. Hell, you'll barely even notice. I mean, if I'm wrong, then whatever. At least we made sure. But if I'm right – "

"Rodney, you don't even know where this thing is. And you admitted yourself that the odds it's still operational are – what? – a thousand to one?"

"Ten thousand," McKay conceded. "As if that means anything in Pegasus."

"McKay – "

"Look!" the scientist growled. "If there is any chance that thing is still online, then there are a _lot_ of people in danger. According to the Ancient database, the weapon is programmed to seek out its own targets and destroy them automatically. And if the targeting system was as bug-filled as the files indicate, then there could be a _holocaust_ in waiting!"

"Assuming the weapon's online at all. Machines tend to get rusty after ten thousand years."

McKay took a long stride, turning to block Sheppard's path. The soldier sighed, posing his hands on his hips as he looked into his friend's angry eyes.

"You're starting to sound like the IOA," McKay accused.

Sheppard swallowed a few words he'd have regretted, his voice strained, but controlled when he finally spoke.

"Rodney, I'm not saying this isn't something we should look into. I'm saying that we can't afford the resources right now. The odds of Michael, Todd, or the rest of the gang killing innocent people, including _us_, are a lot better than ten thousand to one. So until we get a handle on _them_, this takes a back seat. Okay?"

McKay stared him down for a hard second, the lines around his mouth deeper than normal. Then he turned and stalked off without a word.

-----

She'd assumed he was working. That's what he usually did when something went bad. But his lab was empty, sans the dim light of some screensavers.

His quarters were a quick trip from there, but she wondered if a visit was the prudent course. Maybe, for once, he was actually sleeping. Or maybe he so abhorred the thought of human contact just then that he was hiding in the only place he could avoid it. She expected that he'd rudely dismiss her if she showed up announced, that he'd say anything that was necessary to drive her away. So be it, she thought.

He answered the door quick enough that she knew he hadn't been sleeping. And though his eyes were rimmed and drooping, he didn't wear the scowl she'd expected of him. He almost looked happy to see her.

But now that she was there, she didn't know what to say. So she smiled softly, an invitation of sorts – or maybe just a selfish effort to put the pressure of the moment on him.

"Hi," he said quietly, eyes meeting hers at an angle, so that they were half-hidden. "Was there, uh… something you needed?"

Keller froze up. She'd been prepared for anger, for dismissal. She'd crafted responses to such things. But she didn't know what to say to the McKay of no pretenses.

"No… not really," she replied finally, chiding herself for what a mess she was making of this. "I – well, I came to – just to see you. I mean, I wanted to see how you were doing."

For a moment, it looked like he might offer something, but to her dissatisfaction, he shook his head with a brave smile.

"I'm… maybe worn out. But that's about it. I'm pretty good, really. I'm good."

She regarded him with a sympathetic frown.

"Rodney?"

"Yes?"

"You don't need to be," she said, and it sounded like she meant it. "I know how difficult this was for you."

He began to shake his head again, but she cut him off.

"Yes. She was your friend. You got her back, and now she's gone again." As he lowered his head and swept a hand over his face, her feathery voice concluded in a whisper: "You're not fine at all."

He relented finally. Just with a nod. Eyes still cast down. But it was to her as if he'd thrown his arms around her and buried his head in her neck. It meant just as much for him to acknowledge the truth.

Later that night, when he'd fallen asleep, the crown of his head pressed against her leg, she wondered what might have happened if she'd said some of the things she'd wanted to. If she'd met his concessions with some of her own.

But there would be time for that later, she thought. Time was theirs in abundance.

It was a mantra to be repeated, and so she did for a while as she watched him sleep.

-----

"Woolsey caught me working on it earlier. Gave me a rather thorough talking-to. Not that his opinion is of any consequence, obviously. But it's hard enough trying to find this damn weapon facility by myself, much less when I have to be discreet about searching."

He scowled down at his steak, cutting a little harder than was necessary, his knife gnashing against the plate beneath the food. He didn't notice that Keller wasn't listening.

"And don't even get me started on Zelenka. The one person on my staff who isn't completely useless, and he won't give me the time of day on this. I have half a mind to put him on Lorne's team as punishment. Actually, that's not a bad idea. Matter of fact – "

He halted when he looked up, surprised to find her attention had wandered. She was staring over his left shoulder, eyes a little glassy.

"Jennifer?"

"Hmm?"

Her eyes seemed to refocus, blinking a few times before meeting his.

"Are you all right?" he asked, face set in a concerned frown. "You don't look good."

She tried to smile, but didn't succeed, clasping her hands in front of her to keep them from jittering.

"I'm okay," she said, though her pallor contradicted her. "Think I just caught a virus from one of the marines. But nothing bad."

He didn't look convinced.

"Should you be working today?"

"Rodney, it's a bug, not consumption."

"Did you get yourself checked out?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

"Because I know the symptoms of tuberculosis and they don't at all match the mild ones I'm experiencing?"

"Oh, sure. Play the 'I'm a doctor' card."

She rolled her eyes, though it wasn't as effortless as usual.

"As charming as I find the whole concern thing," she said tiredly, "it would be great if we could talk about something else."

"Like how you're going to take the rest of the day off and go to bed?" he offered innocently.

She leaned back in her seat in frustration, heaving a dramatic sigh, but unable to fight off a tiny smile. He really was relentless in all his life's pursuits. And he was looking at her then like she was something to be cherished.

"I am _so_ wearing you down," he said with a smug grin. And he was right.

-----

Keller smirked behind the camera.

"Uh, it was _yours_, actually."

"Oh, ho-ho!" he exclaimed, a lazy smile on his face. "Well… complaint duly registered then."

"It was a good idea to keep a record of what's happening to you, and how fast, but if you'd rather not…"

McKay shook his head dismissively, his smile surviving the act.

"No, it's fine, it's fine. Start with my name, right?"

"Right."

He was trying to keep his spirits high, to be relaxed for her sake, but it didn't look like it was working. She wore the lying smile of a bad politician, the kind who never made it higher than City Council. It wasn't a good look on her.

"Hey, I remembered something," he told her excitedly. "Yay!"

That got a laugh out of her, and it sounded real, so he relaxed a little and looked into the camera, taking a breath before beginning.

"My name is Doctor Rodney McKay. I am head of the Department of Science… something… in Atlantis, in the, um…"

He stared ahead, stomping through marshes in his mind where there'd once been clear lakes, and when several seconds had passed and he'd not yet discovered the pertinent data, he lowered his head in frustration and let out a bitter, self-loathing chuckle.

"Oh, for God's sake."

When he lifted his gaze again, he looked flummoxed and unsettled, but finally conjured the information.

"In the Pegasus galaxy," he finished quietly.

Keller couldn't smile, but she tried to sound reassuring.

"Okay, not bad. Keep going."

He didn't, though. At least not in the way she meant. He appeared thoughtful, solemn, and he was looking into her lenses, not the camera's.

"Jennifer, there's – there's – something I wanted to, um… you know, while I remember, while I still can. Something I wanted to say before…"

"Go ahead," she told him.

He looked so vulnerable and sincere, and in want of things she had a mind to share.

"I… um… I love you," he said, with the blithe innocence of a child. "I've loved you for some time now."

Keller's lips parted just slightly, like they might during a kiss, but she was five feet away from him and he needed her to talk. Her mind was a muddle of thoughts and feelings, of which many conflicted, and she was frantically trying to sift through them, so that she could find the words which were right to speak.

But she couldn't do it fast enough. Seconds passed and she just wasn't _saying_ anything.

He smiled faintly, courageously, glancing down.

"Okay. Where was I?"

-----

"Thanks to the Beastmaster, I'm going to be spending my weekend fixing all the systems on Daedalus. I swear, he's a brain-dead monkey. When he gets a toothache, he probably just shoots it."

"Don't blame me," she said, and it sounded to him like she was really worried he did. "I gave him a stern lecture."

He glanced over at her, as the breeze tousled her hair just a little. She was pleased to see he was smiling.

"You did?"

"Don't look so surprised. I'm a reasonable kind of girl."

"I suppose you are," he said, as she lifted her beer to her lips and took a sip.

It was a simple act, but she looked beautiful doing it. She looked beautiful doing anything, he thought.

His eyes roamed over her face, and he considered how smooth the skin looked, and what it might be like to touch it. He almost did when her eyes met his a second later. There was a long moment, where it looked like he might lean down and she might meet him.

In the end, though, he didn't and she didn't and they both looked away.

-----

"Remind me again why you're not going?"

"Because," Sheppard said, "I've got a date with Landry to offer my expert insights into Woolsey's management style."

McKay reached past him to grab a life-signs detector.

"What are you going to say?"

"That he has his moments."

"He must have them when I'm not looking," McKay sniped lightly, standing and moving toward the door.

Sheppard stepped aside to let his friend walk out first, then followed after him.

"He's not so bad. You just don't like him because that's the hair you'll have in twenty years."

"Yeah, well, at least I don't style mine like I'm in 'High School Musical,'" McKay retorted, gesturing to Sheppard's black mop.

Sheppard frowned, rolling his eyes up as if to look at himself. He paused for a time before saying, "Tell Lorne he can keep you as long as he wants."

-----

Keller's eyes swept over the small town. She thought she should appreciate it – the sight of men and women happily going about their various affairs, and the hard work which had gone into constructing the sturdy buildings – but truth be told, it didn't seem much different from the dozen other towns she'd visited on a dozen other worlds.

Beside her, Lorne was similarly unenthusiastic.

"All right. Sampson, you and me are gonna take the Doc to check on the sick. McKay, you and Hornacek have a look around – see if you can make yourselves useful."

"'Useful?'" McKay repeated distastefully. "Yeah, I'll just have a powwow with their local alchemist and turn some bread into gold."

"Hey, you asked to come. You could've stayed home, you know," Lorne said.

The scientist caught Keller watching him out of the corner of his eye, and raised his hand in dismissal.

"No, no, no. I'm… happy to be here."

He could tell the doctor was smiling at him, and though it seemed affection was what drove her to do so, he couldn't help but feel embarrassed about how transparent his motivations were.

Lorne's smirk didn't help either.

"All right then," the Major said. "We'll be back in a little bit."

-----

Hornacek caught him looking at his reflection in the pond water.

"See something you like?" the young Lieutenant asked.

McKay turned around quickly, clearing his throat.

"I was just… seeing if it was safe to drink," he claimed.

"You can do that with the naked eye, can you?"

"Is there a protocol that says all marines have to be obnoxious smartasses?"

"No. You just bring out the best in us."

McKay shook his head, feigning disgust as was his way. Hornacek surprised him, though, by offering something charitable.

"It was a good call coming here, by the way," he said.

The scientist blinked at him.

"Doctor Keller's obviously into you," Hornacek expounded. "I can't figure why, but she is. And this will definitely win you points."

"I – um – who says I'm – maybe I just wanted to come here for the… fresh air."

Hornacek chuckled.

"Right. Because you couldn't just stand on a balcony for that."

When McKay blew out an annoyed breath, the Lieutenant continued, "Don't take offense, Doctor. I'm just saying, she's clearly waiting for you to do something."

McKay looked at him a moment, then lowered his gaze, shrugging in surrender.

"I'm just… waiting for the right moment," he said. "You know, maybe after I save the day sometime, guns blazing."

"Guns blazing?" his companion scoffed.

McKay glowered.

"Why is that so hard to believe? I shoot bad guys all the time now! Don't even break a sweat. I'm like James Bond."

"Which one?"

"Hmm?"

"Which James Bond?"

McKay had the nerve to consider the matter seriously.

"Connery," he decided. "Or maybe Timothy Dalton."

Hornacek snorted.

"You're Roger Moore, at best."

"_Roger Moore_? Take that back."

"Okay, fine. George Lazenby then."

McKay made a face fit for scaring children.

"You're trying to make me angry now, aren't you?"

So focused was the scientist on this meaningless dispute, that he nearly jumped out of his skin when his and Hornacek's radios crackled, and the desperate voice of Lorne roared overtop a thin rumble of static.

"Lieutenant! Come in!" came the shout.

The two companions shared a distressed look, before the soldier pressed down on his receiver.

"Major, this is Hornacek. What's your status?"

"I've been shot! Keller and Sampson were taken!" Lorne's ragged voice croaked, the manic shuffle of feet audible too.

Hornacek tried to ignore the utter terror on McKay's face.

"Taken by who, sir?"

"Looked like Genii. Can't be sure."

"Sir, are you still in danger?"

"Negative," Lorne replied, letting out a grunt. "There were three of them. Ambushed us. They took off south, opposite the direction of the gate."

"Why would they be going away from the gate?"

"I don't have a clue."

McKay pressed down on his own receiver.

"For all we know, they could've gotten their hands on a ship," he declared drearily. "We have to go after them. _Now_."

There was a long pause, and then Lorne's grim voice: "Negative, Doctor. Fall back to the gate. We'll get reinforcements. I took a bullet in the shoulder, and you two can't go after them by yourselves."

Hornacek cut off the scientist.

"Copy that, Major. Falling back."

As soon as the channel closed, McKay was rifling through a pouch for his life-signs detector, recalibrating it to scan a wider area. He spun around, trying to discern which direction was south. When he finally did, he pointed to it.

"Over there," he said. "Maybe half a mile. They've stopped moving."

Hornacek shook his head firmly.

"Major Lorne was explicit in his orders, Doctor."

"They could be gone by the time we get a full rescue team on the ground!" McKay argued. "We can't risk that. We _have_ to go after them."

Hornacek sighed heavily, glancing down at the ground, and McKay could see the gears grinding in his head.

Though greatly different from Ford in appearance – Hornacek was waspish, with the slightly messy hair of an Iowa farm boy, while Ford was shorter, with curly, receding hair – the man before McKay reminded him of his old friend, who would wear a similar expression when he mulled over a difficult choice.

"All right," Hornacek said finally, looking like he already regretted his decision. "We'll go. But you have to promise me something."

"What's that?"

The soldier grabbed McKay's Beretta out of its holster, shoving it into the scientist's hand.

"Don't be Roger Moore."

McKay glanced down at his gun, heavy in his grasp. Then he nodded.

-----

"They stop here," McKay whispered, pointing to the blinking dots on the scanner.

Hornacek stared into the mouth of the cave, eyes narrowing. Even in the daylight, he couldn't see more than darkness. He glanced at his companion with calm, but wary eyes.

"You sure this is how you wanna play it, McKay?"

The scientist sighed, but it came out like a shudder.

"Well, considering we ignored Lorne on the radio, then turned them off, we might as well go through with it," he said.

Hornacek smiled tightly, lifting his P-90 and switching on the flashlight.

"Fair enough."

-----

It was larger than they'd expected, the cave. Winding through with just the light provided by Hornacek's gun was difficult, but they managed. And it wasn't more than a few short minutes before they could make out artificial illumination of another source.

Hornacek flipped his light off immediately and covered McKay's mouth with his hand, preventing the scientist's inevitable exclamation. He leaned over to whisper in McKay's ear.

"Don't shoot blind," he said. "No telling who'll be where."

It was a simple thing, but it chilled McKay to his core.

Images of Keller, bloodied by his own bullets, flashed through his mind's eye. How would he live with himself, if he were the one to do the deed? What would he write in his report? And what would he tell his maker on the day of his final judgment?

Hornacek took the lead, quietly inching toward the light, following it around a bend. McKay was just behind him, hands steadied by years of experience, despite his overwhelming fear.

He thought about things he should have said to Keller while he still had ample chance.

He should have told her that he liked her lighter hair, and that she was most beautiful at night, and that he appreciated how she didn't screw around with her nails, and that the sound of her voice – amused or furious or whatever – always made him feel calmer, and that when he felt the worst, he wished he could just put his head in her lap and let her send the hurt away, and that he wanted her body, but he wanted her soul more.

They could make out voices now – conspiratorial murmurs not loud or clear enough to be discerned.

McKay's hand tightened around the grip. And in the next moments, it all went to hell.

Hornacek was around a corner and spraying bullets, and then his head was rocking back and spraying blood as he fell.

McKay hardly had time to think. He was in an awkward headlong dive, finger squeezing the trigger and pounding out rounds. Most of them caught the Genii in the legs – the two of them who were still alive, as the third lay sprawled on the ground full of Hornacek's P-90 offerings – and the pair fell with primal growls, dropping their guns.

The scientist dropped his too, though, and it became a race to see who was calm and able enough to reclaim their discarded weapon.

McKay's Beretta was out of reach; both Genii gathered their guns. But in a swift, not altogether uncoordinated move, McKay rolled back to Hornacek's prone body, took up his P-90, and as a stray bullet whizzed past his head and ricocheted off the cave wall, fired enough shots into the chest of each man to kill them twice.

The scientist froze, keeping the pose like a kind of violent tableau, breaths heaving in and out of him.

So much blood. All over the walls. If the bodies weren't there, he might have thought the red blotches were from animals, not men, and he might have thought they were the ink of barbarians, meant to tell a primitive story.

He dropped the gun at last and checked Hornacek's pulse behind him. But there was nothing to be found 'neath the man's neck, and nothing to be found in his eyes.

Not far from there, Keller and Sampson were crumpled on the ground. Both had gashes on their heads, but discernable pulses too.

He cradled the doctor in his arms and turned his radio on. And then he waited.

-----

"Rodney, y'have to let go of her, an' let me do my job," Beckett demanded.

McKay's eyes were blank, and he didn't relinquish her, his expression dark as he watched a pair of medics lift up Sampson on a stretcher. Hornacek's body was still lying there; they'd have to maneuver around it.

"Rodney, y'have to let go," Beckett repeated.

And with a bitter nod, he did.

-----

He'd deserved the fierce tirade Lorne unleashed.

There'd been no ship on the planet, no other means of escape. No one could quite figure what the Genii had been angling for, but it was clear that Atlantis would have had ample time to launch a proper rescue.

"That kid's family's getting a letter now, because you talked him into something stupid," Lorne had said.

And he was right. It was true. McKay couldn't remember if Hornacek had a wife or a girlfriend back home. But at a minimum, a mother had lost her boy and a sister had lost her brother, and two galaxies had lost a bright, kind man in a universe that was short of them.

Beckett's hand on his shoulder drew his attention back to the present – back to the labyrinth of tubes and wires around Sampson, and Keller's small body peacefully asleep in the next bed.

"Rodney, why don'ya go an' get some rest?" he suggested. "She's not in danger anymore, but she's prob'ly gonna be asleep for a while now."

McKay didn't bother to say anything, just shaking his head.

Beckett watched him, thinking how unlike his friend it was not to be demanding the details of her treatment or dressing the doctor down for some mild incompetence. McKay wasn't the passive sort, but he looked it now.

"Are ya sure you're all right, lad?"

McKay just stared at Keller. Beautiful and angelic and alive, though his stunt could easily have killed her. He'd been reckless and stupid. His theory about the Genii acquiring a ship was, at best, a stretch of logic. Had he really believed it possible? Had he truly believed their time was so short? That a proper rescue couldn't wait?

Or had he simply wanted to be the one to save her?

"Roger Moore," he said softly.

"What?"

McKay shook his head, exhaling in defeat.

"Nothing."

-----

"He was here all mornin', but y'were sleeping."

Keller blinked, looking away. She was still so tired. But the thought of missing another visit from him made her strain to keep her eyes open.

He'd saved her life again, and kept a vigil in the infirmary, when he knew full well she was fine. Things like that required reciprocity.

"I haven't had a chance to thank him yet."

"All in due time, lass," Beckett said. "I'm sure he'll be back t'see ya later."

Keller nodded, sure of it too.

But the both of them were wrong.

-----

Woolsey chewed him out the same as Lorne had. It was well-deserved, certainly. And as Woolsey wasn't hindered by any particular affection for McKay, the way Elizabeth and Sam were, the scientist had been expecting a censure or reprimand or some other kind of official action.

But in the end, Woolsey had told him that mistakes happen, that he acted courageously, that Hornacek's death wasn't his fault, and that his report to the IOA would reflect that.

Lorne, similarly, had found him after the meeting and apologized for his earlier remarks.

McKay thought they were pathetic. A man was dead, and it was his fault, and with but a few harsh critiques, they were giving him a free pass.

He was out on the balcony, staring into darkness, when Beckett's footsteps sounded behind him, and the placid Scot joined him at the railing.

McKay smiled weakly.

"How is she?" he asked.

"She's fine," Beckett replied mildly, pausing as McKay nodded, before adding, "Though she's wonderin' why ya haven't been back t'see her."

"I do have a job, you know."

"Does it involve standing on balconies by yourself?"

McKay looked suitably irritated.

"Whatever you want to say, just say it," he grumbled.

"I'm nah sure you'll have the patience to hear it."

"Just give me the Cliff Notes and get this over with."

Beckett glanced down at his hands.

"I ever tell ya 'bout the young lady I fancied in medical school?"

"Oh, please," McKay groaned. "I'm not interested in your dime store novella about love spurned, all right?"

"Would ya just shut up an' listen, Rodney?"

McKay rolled his eyes, scrubbing a hand over his face, and though he wore an exasperated expression, he complied.

When Beckett was satisfied he'd not be interrupted, he looked out over the ocean's clear waters.

"I met her my fourth year. We did our clinical education at the same hospital. I think we were twenty-two, if I recall. At the time, I thought of her as competition, an' I was always tryin' to outdo her. But I gave that up pretty quick the first time we had a real conversation."

He smiled at the memory.

"She tol'me we were on the same side. She was right, of course. I was being a little too much like…" He trailed off, gesturing bluntly to his companion. But when McKay frowned and stared back at him obliviously, he said, "Too much like Radek, that is."

The cover-up seemed to satisfy his friend, so he continued.

"After that, I knew there was something there. We didn't have much time off, but what we did have, we spent with each other. I'd daydream about'er whenever I wasn't with a patient. Some of the others said she was a wee bit smitten with me too."

"Is this going _anywhere_?"

"Would ya shut up an' let me bloody finish?"

McKay leaned forward against his forearms, wiping his eyes. But he was silent. With a sigh, Beckett once more continued.

"We never had a proper date, but we spent more time together than a lot of couples do. Intimate situations sometimes. I remember when my father passed, she took off three days t'be with me. Helped me plan the funeral. Spread his ashes."

He tried to hurry his next words, but his voice wouldn't cooperate. He swallowed hard a few times, like sickly sorts were prone to do, gathering himself with a string of furious blinks.

"I don' think I knew it at the time, but ya have to love someone to do that."

McKay's eyes were soft.

"Did she ever tell you?" he asked.

"Nay. She never did. And I never told her either," Beckett said. "Had plenty of chances to. Lots'a times. Always told myself to wait just a bit. Wait 'til things were a little calmer."

"So what happened?"

Beckett ran a hand through his mussed-up hair, scratching his scalp like a woodsman in search of ticks. Or in search of something, at least.

"One night, I convinced myself to go tell her."

"And?"

He shrugged sourly, sighing.

"And I couldn't say it, 'cause it wasn't true anymore," he said.

McKay frowned deeply, not looking at him. He shook his head, eyes smaller than normal and not burning.

"I don't get it. What are you trying to say?"

Beckett smiled gently.

"I'm sayin' there's things out there that die as easily as people do. And waitin' for it to happen is the worst kind of misery."

McKay kept staring out, gaze a world away from Beckett's, and he rubbed the stubble around his chin with a jittery hand. He wondered what he'd look like with one of those four day-old beards, and what Keller might think if he grew one, and why he'd been cursed to care what she thought, and whether one man's truth was the same as another's.

-----

"Hey," she murmured tiredly, giving him a lazy smile. "I was starting to think you wouldn't come see me."

McKay looked sheepish as he sat down.

"I'm – yeah, I was busy. Not that work is more important than – plus, you were sleeping and – "

Her widening smile was enough to silence him. He turned his eyes down to watch her hand, as it slid across the white sheet to grasp his.

When he looked up, she said cheerfully, "Carson told me you weren't hurt."

Some other time, he might have cavalierly disputed the claim, made mention of the tightness in his back or how sore his elbow was, but such games seemed frivolous now, when Sampson was lying near to them. He shook his head.

"No, I managed to avoid that this time."

"A good thing too," Keller said, stroking her thumb over the top of his hand. "We can't have you at the mercy of a 'voodoo practitioner' while I'm knocked out."

McKay smiled faintly, but looked away. The corners of her mouth turned down as she observed him.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

He glanced up.

"I just told you – "

"No. I mean, how are you _doing_?"

It was funny the way the same question could mean different things. He wondered if that was true of other languages, and not just English – if a Spanish woman could have gotten her point across like that.

He shrugged.

"I'm all right. I… wish things had happened a little differently, but, um… they didn't, I guess."

The casual tone of voice didn't match his eyes. She squeezed the hand she still held, but he only tensed more, and she fumbled for the words to comfort him.

"You saved my life. Again. That has to count for something, doesn't it?"

"Maybe," McKay replied distantly, before sheepishly amending, "I mean, of course it does. It definitely does. But…"

"Rodney, he wouldn't blame you. I feel pretty sure of that."

"No. But there's people who will miss him, and they will. And they should."

She shook her head.

"He knew the risks when he came here," she reasoned softly.

McKay stared at her for a long moment, and she could see a glimmer of hope in his eyes, like he was actually considering that she might be right, but like dust in a breeze, it was gone the next instant, and he was gently pulling his hand from her grasp.

"I, uh – I'm – I should probably get back to work."

Keller smiled sadly, and he loathed to see it, but she nodded without a word. He stood up, looking down on her awkwardly.

"I'll come back and see you later, okay?"

She nodded again, and he turned to leave.

But he didn't return to see her that day, or the next day before her release. He didn't see the point in reminding himself of wrongs done and chances lost and a slow, glum death of what little Grace he'd smuggled out of the womb and into the world.

-----

He was distant in the weeks that followed. They still had dinners together, still spent time with one another, but not as often and not as comfortably. There was a distance between them, entirely of McKay's making. She tried to close the breach, but the effort was in vain.

He looked tired all the time, and he wasn't taking care of himself. She'd never seen him go without shaving for longer than a day, but now he'd neglect the act for two or three days, and his eyes – those expressive eyes that had so much to say – were full of muck and mire and didn't hint at anything.

She asked Sheppard about it. He told her he'd talk to him, but they never spoke of the matter again.

She asked Teyla about it. The Athosian said it was normal – that McKay had stretches of reclusive behavior. Maybe he does that with you guys, Keller thought, but never with me. Was that a prideful thing to think? She didn't know.

She even asked Ronon about it. He shrugged, with a casual, "Couldn't tell you. He seems fine to me, though."

All dead ends.

She thought about forcing him to come in for a physical.

It scared her to entertain the thought. When had things gotten so bad? How were they at the precipice of something wonderful in one instant, and at the bottom of that hill in the next? Things like that didn't just _happen_, she realized. It wasn't the fault of a nebulous thing like chance. There were culpable parties – flesh and blood to blame.

Keller thought about all of this, and she tried to ponder a manner in which to right the course. But she'd no remedy, no option before her, when on a cool, clear day in the middle of September, McKay's great fear transformed to a reckoning.

-----

"What the – what was that?! Get the picture back!" McKay demanded.

Chuck's hands glided over the console, but he shook his head.

"I can't, Doctor. The signal's dead – just vanished."

Behind them, Sheppard and Woolsey exchanged a grim glance, before the soldier stepped forward, leaning over Chuck's shoulder.

"Sergeant, replay the video from the MALP," he said.

Chuck complied, typing furiously for an instant, then leaning back as the video replayed on the monitor. It was scarcely more than two seconds of footage, but what was there was unfathomable, disturbing.

Stretching out ahead into the distance was a funereal red wasteland, the ground fractured and superheated, the sky a dismal shade of orange and gray, black ash raining down like snow on a white Christmas. The video, short as it was, played on a loop.

McKay stared at the images in horror.

"That can't be right," Sheppard said. "We must have dialed the wrong address."

Chuck slowly swiveled in his chair to face him, a touch of melancholy in his eyes as he shook his head.

"Negative, sir. This is it. M7G-677."

"I don't understand," Woolsey interjected, brows knit in confusion and revulsion. "How could this happen?"

To their right, seemingly forgotten, McKay turned angrily, narrow-eyed, posture resembling a provoked bull.

"I'll tell you how it happened!" he growled. "It happened because you ignored me for six months, while I _repeatedly_ warned you of the consequences of inaction!"

He was inside the men's personal space a moment later.

"Do you see that?! They are _dead_! All _dead_!"

Woolsey did his best not to recoil from his subordinate's rebuke, but the fury was difficult to withstand. He sought to remain diplomatic.

"Doctor, we can't be sure that it was – "

"Oh, you still don't believe me? Hmm? Okay, go ahead," he snarled, whipping his gaze over to the technician. "Go ahead, Chuck. Dial another one. Let's see how many more have been wiped out, courtesy of our fearless leaders' utter incompetence!"

"That's enough, Rodney!" Sheppard shouted.

The room fell silent.

Chuck and an assortment of other technicians, and the familiarly quiet Teyla and Ronon, looked on bleakly. Sheppard's eyes, though stern, weren't angry like McKay's. Neither were Woolsey's. Maybe they thought there was truth in what McKay said, or maybe they were just calmer people than was the scientist.

McKay glared at the men a moment longer, then pushed past them, violently discarding his tac-vest on his way out.

-----

They found five more razed planets in the days that followed, four of which had once boasted thriving human societies. But it was that first planet that stuck in McKay's mind: M7G-677, where Keras and the children had resided. Destroyed in an instant by an abominable thing, left carelessly behind by the Ancients.

They may have given life to this place, but they'd doomed it too. They'd sewn the seeds of the Garden of Eden, but left it in the care of competing snakes. They were no better than the Wraith or the Asurans or the others – just bastards hiding behind the folds of white robes.

The resources of the entire base were now devoted to finding the facility from which the rogue weapon was firing. Scientists worked around the clock. When they slept, it was on cots in the labs, and for just three hours at a time. McKay routinely skipped his turn, and when he didn't, he slept for just an hour. Zelenka was concerned, but said nothing.

Non-science personnel assisted in combing through the Ancient database for information. When they, or the scientists, produced promising intelligence, the military teams would venture through the gate to follow the leads. But they all came up empty.

A number of individuals were taking stimulants to fight their exhaustion, but Keller was micromanaging everyone's doses and turning away the many who demanded more. One such person was McKay.

"This isn't up for debate," he said.

Keller eyed him evenly.

"You're right. It's not."

McKay sighed. He should have expected as much from her. He might have been able to bully Beckett into it, or appeal to the Scot emotionally, but Keller seemed immune to such beseechments.

Still, he had to try.

"Jennifer, I know you have that whole… oath thing to consider," he began quietly. "But there are entire _planets_ dying out there. And you and I both know I'm the only one who can stop this. I can't do that if I'm not awake and lucid."

Keller looked away.

There was truth in what he said, a case to be made for her concession. His responsibility was enormous. But even still, that oath he so cavalierly spoke of was at the core of who she was. The endangered parties scattered throughout Pegasus were not her patients – McKay was. And in the end, no matter the circumstance, that meant something.

She shook her head gently.

"I'm sorry, Rodney. I can't."

To her surprise, he uttered nothing in anger in reply. He simply looked at her tiredly, then nodded.

His failure in the infirmary didn't lead him to sleep anymore than he had been. It only served to make his concentration falter as he went about his work. Zelenka, who was following the sleep schedule McKay himself had mandated, covered for his superior's various mistakes, never commenting as he did so.

The search reached its eighteen day, as the expedition approached its breaking point. Scientists went about their tasks as zombies would their feasts, and personal interactions were few and curt.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, during the first shift when most everyone was allowed to sleep, Zelenka's eyes widened. He sprang out of his chair, knocking it and his coffee cup over in his zeal, as he spun around to address a slumped figure across the room.

"Rodney!" he shouted. "Rodney! I found it!"

-----

Sheppard emerged from the wormhole first, McKay, Teyla, and Ronon following after him.

As the American soldier looked out over the green fields before him, he couldn't help but shudder at knowing that a doomsday device of vile proportions was hiding there, somewhere in this beautiful place, so stark in its contrast from the fiery hellscapes left behind on other worlds.

McKay dug the heel of his palm into his eyes, willing them to unblur before glancing down at his scanner. His teammates waited patiently for his analysis.

When he kept staring, but offered nothing, Teyla lay a soft hand on his arm, and prompted him: "Rodney?"

"Um… right," he said, looking a moment longer before gesturing southeast. "That way."

No one said anything. They began walking.

-----

The facility was what one would expect of the Ancients.

Beautiful architecture. A streamlined layout. It was still sterile and lit and humming after the passage of thousands of years. One could have mistaken these corridors for those of Atlantis.

The team only spoke to one another when necessary. The tension between Sheppard and McKay remained readily apparent.

Teyla suggested they split up at some point, and she volunteered to go with McKay.

The scientist had found the Auxiliary Control Room, and was wearily interfacing with a computer terminal, when Teyla posed a question she'd been pondering for weeks.

"Rodney, there is something I have been curious about, if you do not mind indulging me."

"What's that?" he asked tiredly.

"Do you blame Colonel Sheppard for the circumstances which brought us here?"

McKay stopped what he was doing. His hands rested on the keyboard, but applied no pressure to the keys. Though he didn't look at her, Teyla could see the spark in his eyes, and felt certain of his answer.

"I warned him what could happen," he said.

"So you do blame him, then."

McKay seemed to consider the matter, as if for the first time. After a few moments, he shook his head.

"No," he said, looking down. "I did before. But it's not his fault."

He glanced up at her, and Teyla could see the guilt, as clear as she knew when her son was hungry.

"It was my responsibility to make him understand. To make him take me seriously. And I didn't do that."

Teyla regarded him sympathetically, but he turned away so as not to see it.

"Rodney, you did all you could. Dr. Keller informed me that you worked many hours on your own time to search for this facility."

McKay flinched at the mention, but said nothing. Teyla was the observant sort, and with a mild exhale, she rested her hand on her friend's shoulder.

He waited for her to speak again. She didn't. For that, he was grateful.

-----

The weapon's programming was too complicated for any one man to make heads or tails of.

On McKay's request, dozens of scientists, the same men and women who had worked themselves to early graves to find the weapon, were sent through the gate to assist him in deactivating it.

The halls of the facility teemed with life, as everyone went about their tasks.

It was on the third day that Woolsey paid McKay a personal visit, cornering his lead scientist as he worked alone at a junction.

"Dr. McKay, a word?"

The pale man's bloodshot eyes caught the bureaucrat's, while he tiredly examined a crystal tray.

"I wanted to tell you this in person," Woolsey said, in that foreboding voice of a Steinbeck character. "I've just received word from the IOA that the weapon is not to be deactivated."

"Excuse me?"

"You're to fix the targeting computer so that no more… unfortunate incidents take place. But you're to leave the weapon itself intact. The IOA feels that it could be very valuable in our fight against the Wraith."

McKay didn't say anything. And he didn't look angry. Maybe it was because he felt close to death, and the dead cannot emote. His voice, hoarse and gravelly and quiet, sounded like the toll of the bell men live their lives avoiding.

"You stupid son of a bitch," he said.

Woolsey's forehead creased in his surprise.

"Pardon me, Doctor, but – "

"You don't know when to quit, do you? Nothing is ever enough for you guys," McKay snarled, shaking his head, fighting the dizziness that slight action brought. "People are dead, because we didn't look for this thing. Now that we've finally found it, you want to use it to kill _more_?"

"To kill _Wraith_, Doctor."

"Until the targeting system gets fried again. Or our Asgard friends get their hands on it."

"We would take measures to be sure that doesn't happen!" Woolsey argued, taking an imploring step toward him. "Doctor, we could end the Wraith threat in this galaxy. We could save a billion lives!"

McKay let out a laugh, manic and humorless and chilling. He regarded Woolsey with mocking, maddened eyes.

"You know what scares me?" he said, voice just loud enough to be heard. "There was a time when I would have agreed with you. Before I saw a planet full of children wiped off the map."

The bureaucrat flinched.

"Mr. Woolsey, no one dumb enough to build a weapon like this is smart enough to use it."

"The Ancients built it, _not_ us."

"And you think we're smarter than they are?" McKay scoffed. "We're their idiot grandkids. We screw up enough without wielding the power of God."

Woolsey looked away, then down at his shoes, all scuffed and scratched and dirty. He wondered how they'd gotten that way, just walking from the gate to the building.

McKay squinted against the bright lights of the hallway, barely realizing it when the bureaucrat met his gaze again, eyes blinking behind his glasses.

"The Wraith destroyed the facility," Woolsey said.

McKay frowned.

"What?"

"There were no casualties, but unfortunately, the weapon was destroyed," Woolsey explained. "The IOA will be disappointed, but they'll understand that we did all we could to save it."

One corner of his mouth twitched, as if about to turn up, though it never did. The same hinted smile appeared on McKay's face a second later, as the scientist nodded slightly.

Woolsey kept his eye for just a moment, then left him to his work.

-----

"No, no, no! Not there," McKay bellowed exasperatedly, snapping his fingers in the opposite direction. "Over on that wall, or this level won't collapse right."

Sampson rolled his eyes, but did as ordered, attaching a plastique explosive about shoulder-height on the parallel wall. He glanced back at the scientist.

"Is this good?"

"That's fine," McKay replied, though he didn't even look.

Sampson thought to make a fuss, but instead sighed, shrugged, and made his way down to the corridor to rejoin Lorne on the floor above them. As he walked, there were footsteps, and then Sheppard appeared from around a corner, heading in McKay's direction.

"Colonel."

"Lieutenant," Sheppard acknowledged with a nod.

The scientist was intently studying an open panel on the wall opposite the explosive, forehead wrinkled in concentration as he rearranged a couple of the crystals.

He didn't look up when Sheppard approached.

"How's it coming?"

"All right," McKay replied mildly. "Just making sure the force field failsafes on this level are disabled, so they don't come on when we blow the place."

"Good. I'd hate to waste fifty blocks of C4."

"Is Stargate Command going to wonder why we suddenly need that much replaced?"

"Landry doesn't ask too many questions," Sheppard said.

McKay just grunted, as he examined one of the crystals in the light. Sheppard stood there awkwardly, rubbing some stubble on the back of his neck.

"Was there something you needed?" McKay asked.

Sheppard crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall, only looking at his friend out of the corner of his eye.

"I just…" He paused, looking more timid than McKay had ever seen him. "I wanted to make sure that you and me are good."

"Good?"

"You know what I mean, Rodney."

McKay nodded. He did know. He inserted the crystal into its new slot. It fit perfectly.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "We're good."

He closed the panel, picking his laptop up off the floor and holding it under one arm as he began down the hallway, Sheppard falling into step beside him.

As they rounded the corner, the transporter in view ahead, Sheppard turned to the scientist tentatively, resolved to speak the words his companion deserved to hear.

"Look, I wanted to tell you that… I'm s – "

"We're good," McKay repeated. "We're good."

-----

Everything went as planned.

The facility lay in ruins, the weapon cast down into the fire where all things evil are born and die.

But it seemed anti-climactic. There'd been no Replicators or Wraith or mutated beasts to contend with – just long, empty hallways and docile machines. They'd not fired P-90s or escaped to the gate in a rush. There'd been no gallows humor or fearful banter, or promises made while one of them bled.

McKay stared into the inferno, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

It should have been a moment of triumph. A feather in his crowded cap. But all he wanted to do was vomit, and silence the fire's voices.

He felt Teyla's familiar hand on his shoulder, squeezing the tense muscles.

"Rodney?"

"Hmm?"

"It is time to go," she told him.

But there was something holding him there. Some sense that he was about to lose something. And even as he nodded at Teyla, his mind wandered.

Time, he thought. There's never enough time. Men organize and build things, so that they've something to rule over. But cities burn and fall, and leaders are deposed. And at the end of everything is the awful truth – all we rule is a kingdom of days, too short and too few and so seldom remembered, when we leave them behind to crumble.

He turned and smiled weakly, as she took his arm and pulled him along, away from the ruins and back to the gate.

-----

Lorne's team passed through the puddle first. Then Sheppard's.

Woolsey was there to greet them, a muted smile on his face.

"Colonel. Major. Welcome back. I trust everything went as it was supposed to."

"Yes, sir," Sheppard drawled, wearing a lopsided grin. "Damn Wraith came out of nowhere. But we're still in one piece."

"And the facility?"

"Destroyed. Damn shame, huh?"

Woolsey nodded his agreement, glancing at McKay a moment before meeting Sheppard's gaze again.

"Well, it should make for an interesting report," he said. "For now, Dr. Keller is waiting in the infirmary for your post-mission examinations."

Sheppard led the way out of the gate room, Lorne and Ronon and Sampson and whoever that new kid was behind him. McKay walked a little slower, and Teyla hung back with him.

"I hope that you are planning to sleep after your exam," Teyla said at one point, noting his barely steady gait.

McKay let out a chuckle or a groan, or something of both.

"No," he said hoarsely. "I'm not really tired yet."

Teyla laughed too, then, rubbing his back as she led him.

-----

Keller declared that she would see to Lorne's team, and Beckett to Sheppard's.

It was a simple division of labor, but it stung McKay like few things did. He tried to watch her discreetly, to see if she'd look over at him. He took heart that she did from time to time.

"Now, I wan' ya to go to your quarters an' rest, Colonel. Ya hear me?"

Sheppard smiled.

"Have I ever disregarded medical advice?" he asked.

"I don' think there's enough hours lef' in the day to answer that."

Sheppard patted Beckett on the arm as he hopped off the exam table. Then his eyes fell on his teammate while he slid into his jacket.

"You gonna be a good boy and go to bed, McKay?"

The scientist turned sharply at the sound of his name.

"What?"

"I said, you better be going to bed when you're done here. You look like Death."

"Yes, well, you won't be gracing the cover of Skin Tone Monthly either."

Sheppard smirked, glancing at Beckett as he backed toward the exit.

"Make sure you use the big needle, Doc," he said.

McKay didn't catch the barb, though. His attention was already on Keller again, who was shining a penlight into Sampson's eyes across the infirmary. He thought, not for the first time, about how soft her hands were for being so capable.

But it was Beckett's hands that were on him a moment later, feeling the glands around his neck.

"She's been worried about ya," the Scot said genially.

McKay glanced up at him, looking as tired and pathetic as a street beggar. He didn't want a handout, though. He could have decked the man for the kindness in his eyes.

"I've seen the way ya been since Tom passed," the doctor told him, as he shined a light into his patient's ear. "I know you're holdin' on to that."

Tom Hornacek. McKay had almost forgotten that his mother gave him a name.

"It's none of your business," he gnarled wearily.

Beckett smiled sadly, looking in the other ear.

"Aye, it's not."

Across the room, Keller finished Sampson's exam, pressing a small band-aid over the place where she'd drawn blood. The young lieutenant smiled his thanks, rolling his sleeve back down and departing.

For a moment, as she smiled faintly in McKay's direction, he thought she might walk over and speak to him. But she didn't. She placed her stethoscope down on one of the counters and left.

It felt to McKay like a form of rebuke.

Beckett tied a tourniquet around his arm, smiling again.

"Ya have any blood in there to give me?"

McKay closed his eyes, the crushing weight of the things behind them pounding against his lids. He grunted, or whimpered, when the needle slid in.

"Plenty," he whispered.

-----

Keller cupped her hands beneath the faucet, washing away her thin layer of makeup.

Her fatigue wasn't bone-deep like that of the scientists, but sleep's entreaty was no less alluring. The events of the prior weeks, worrying about and caring for the armies of the determined, had sapped her of something she felt certain she'd never be getting back.

She dried her face, glancing at her reflection in the mirror.

The bathroom light was unforgiving, and the secrets it revealed weren't meant for one's own eyes. She quickly palmed the light off, shaking away the image as she entered the adjoining room.

With a deep, empty breath, she climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to her chest.

She couldn't shut her eyes, though. She tried. But it was as if the part of her brain which controlled that single act were immune to being commanded, and whatever will she applied to the effort was devoted to sheer worthlessness, an entity to whom she'd pledged of late too much.

She was still wide awake when her door chimed minutes later.

Glancing at her clock on the nightstand, which crisply read _23:50_, Keller pulled back the covers and slid to her feet, softly padding across the room.

There was a knot in her stomach when she opened the door, and it only tightened when she saw her tired scientist, barely standing with the help of the frame.

"Rodney. Hi."

He smiled tightly, averting his eyes from her.

"Hi, I'm – I know it's…" He took a ragged breath. "It's late, and I'm sorry, but I – there's something I came to say. Is that all right?"

Keller took a measure of him, as a doctor and a woman. He was pale and slouching and so clearly haunted, like the victim of a midnight vision in some lost work from the pen of Dickens.

She took a step back.

"Um… yeah. Sure. Come in."

He walked past her, and she was immediately struck by the vigor of his movements. He was rubbing his hands together, and paced the length of the room a few times, before stopping in the middle.

The door slid shut, and she watched him patiently.

Now that he was still, she could see that he was trembling. Sleep deprivation could do that. So could some other things.

"I, uh… I've been…" He tapped his clasped hands against his forehead. "I've been thinking a lot. About a lot of things."

Keller kept her voice soft.

"Like what?"

"Just… I don't know. The way I am. Stuff I've done."

"What is it you think you've done?" she asked.

McKay soughed in frustration, feeling inarticulate suddenly, maddeningly so, and he ran an angry hand through his hair, digging it into scalp, as if pressing down hard enough would give him access to his brain, and a chance to lock away all the vile things floating through his gray matter.

"I could've found it sooner," he said.

Keller smiled sadly. She knew he felt that way, that he'd been torturing himself with the hypothetical. It was just in his nature to believe he could save entire planets.

"Yes, you could have. If they'd let you look. But they didn't."

He shook his head.

"If I'd just – "

"_No_, Rodney!"

McKay paused, still shaking, and he lowered his head like a scolded child would. And Keller couldn't decide whether to coddle him or slap him for so clearly missing the point. She sighed a sigh six months in the making.

"Why do you do this?" she asked quietly.

He turned away, into the stream of moonlight shining through the window. There were things he'd come prepared to say, and things he hadn't. But he realized then that he'd deny her nothing, no matter how it savaged him.

"I do things," he said. "And when I do them, people die."

Keller wanted so badly to touch him.

"This wasn't your fault. Neither was Tom."

McKay turned back around to face her, his hands' tremors greater now, and his eyes, those windows into hidden places, sad and wet and just so _old_.

But there was something else there too. Hard to find, but there. Something the opposite of all the wreckage. Deep inside those pupils was the dim hope of a better day, deliverable for a finite time that he prayed had not elapsed.

He thought he saw in her eyes some thread of an equal thing.

"I… I told you something once, a long time ago," he said, voice quivering. "And I meant it. I swear I meant it."

Keller was shaking too.

"What about now?"

"I've…" He squeezed his eyes shut, face twisted in a grimace. "I have regrets, Jen."

She took a step toward him, something dampening her eyes, the wretched sight of him just so perfect to her. His shoulders were slumped down like a railworker's after driving the last spike.

"So do I."

Her hands were on his arms, warm and alive where he was cold.

"I don't want mine anymore," he whispered. "I wanna crack open my chest and empty out the ghosts."

She could feel his breath on her now. Hot and choppy and fundamentally _his_.

"Then what?"

His lips were on her forehead, then her brow.

"Whatever's left," he murmured, "is yours."

And then his mouth founds hers at last, in the desperate sort of union the universe most condones. Their lips were gentle, hers soft and his chapped, moving against each other cautiously, as if neither party were certain if the other was too fragile.

At her urging, it deepened. Her bittersweet taste slipped on his tongue then, and his arms circled her back, pulling her flush against him. The angle was awkward, but he hardly noticed – just held her there, like a child who didn't care if the puzzle pieces fit right.

They were like that for a while, and then she was pulling him toward the bed.

She broke apart from him, imbibing his endearing whimper as she sat down on the mattress edge. He watched with breathless adulation as she pulled her tank top over her head and dropped it on the floor.

He was on top of her in a flash, and her nimble hands worked at his pants as he reclaimed her mouth.

His clothes were discarded, and then so were the rest of hers, so that there was nothing between them but whatever had always been there.

He hovered over her, staring into her eyes worshipfully. She smiled, framing his face with her hands, smoothing away the imaginary ugliness with the pads of her soft fingers.

"Not your fault," she whispered.

It was a beautiful lie, and once he was inside, it was easier to let go of the truth.

* * *

**FIN**

**

* * *

**


End file.
